Ask
by He will knock four times
Summary: Merlin and Arthur have been taken captive a ludicrous number of times. They also escape a ludicrous number of times; but we always see it from their point of view. What's it like for Barden, former bandit who is now a power hungry mercenary?


It occurred to me that we never get to see it from a minor Villans view... The going on and how their plan falls apart. The tiny flaws or royal f-ups that make their plan start. I mean sure we get to see Merlin witnessing this or that and sometimes we see the Villans hired but their a minor character we barely see much of them except when they are all... Villanyish. So I wrote this.

xxx

It had been a mistake.

A grievous mistake. A miscalculation on their part. So many things had gone wrong with their plan to gain power that they hadn't realized they had reached too high. Gone too far. Anyone with less than savory intentions and the right connections could find out the truth about prince Arthur of Camelot and his sorcerous manservant. No one who had these connections of course could fathom why this was so, but it irked many that one as supposedly powerful as Emrys would protect Arthur Pendragon.

The plan in hindsight had been so simple. It had all seemed so easy to accomplish. They had a sorcerer of their own with a special pair of manacles that could repress magic, prepared and ready before hand. They had thirty men on reserve who had had experience before as bounty hunters. They had arranged a leader who would stand back and direct the resulting battle. Painstakingly they had put together the plan.

If they could get to the sorcerer in front of the Pendragon then they were safe because he wouldn't do anything to reveal himself. If they got to the Pendragon first then Emrys wouldn't dare do anything in retaliation in fear of his precious master being killed.

It had worked spectacularly too.

Three men each back thirty feet with crossbows trained onto the prince while a close range cutthroat they had hired held a dagger to his throat. Emrys had held up his hand with conflict in his eyes, clearly ready to reveal himself for the sake of the pampered prince. All it took was the knife to the throat to get the boy to back off. It was all so predictable. Just like she had said it would be.

Looking at him closely Barden couldn't reconcile what he had imagined a powerful sorcerer to look like with the scrawny git in front of him. It was rather surprising that such a weak thing of barely twenty could be anything she had mentioned him to be. However he couldn't deny the reports from his men that the boy had been using magic discreetly during the fight from behind the tree he had been 'cowering'. He supposed looking so weak and non-threatening came in useful when living so close to someone as paranoid as Uther when it came to magic. The boy looked like the type more suited to shuffling paper and scrubbing floors than carrying the surprisingly heavy amounts he was for his precious prince when they ambushed them.

He certainly didn't look like a dragon lord.

But that was why they targeted him in the first place. Dragons. He felt his triumph and greed rise at the thought of having dragons serve him. Apparently there was more than one dragon now. She had said so. So far she had been right about how the sorcerer had magic and would react to his prince being threatened. So clearly him being a dragon lord and there being a second should be right.

They had suppressed his magic with the manacles and taken them to a camp. The torture they had given the boy to gain his compliance was surprisingly ineffective. Merlin, as the boy insisted he be called, did not care. He at first tried saying that it was a lie. He wasn't a dragon lord. He tried to say that the great dragon was dead. So Borden told him that he would kill the prince if he continued to lie. Eventually Barden dragged the prince before the battered sorcerer and threatened to cut off a finger for every lie told.

He hadn't wanted to say so in front of the prince, to confirm his magic, but he changed his tune soon enough when the knives came out over his masters hands.

He told them he wouldn't ever let the dragon become theirs. That the great dragon would never attack Camelot so long as he was its master. Right then Barden knew he should have listened. The conviction of the man in front of him as he said it. The ability to resist the torture. But he had come so far. Too far to back down then.

Later that night when the sorcerer had somehow gotten free it should have occurred to him this was a fools errand.

Later the next morning when he and his men caught up, he should have taken heed by how calm and unafraid the sorcerer Merlin was.

Him and his prince were in a clearing about a good three hundred feet in diameter. They were in its center. His men had them surrounded. There was thirty of his own and two of them, one of which could not use magic to defend the others.

Tense as they were it was no surprise when someone with a twitchy crossbow finger accidentally shot the prince in the shoulder. It was a not a fatal hit but Barden knew that they would have been dead if Merlin wasn't wearing those magic suppressing bracelets. The ugly expression on his face was full of rage and dark emotions. The prince unconscious and down for the count. He had thought he still had the upper hand, what with magic out of reach. The only one there good with a sword had an arrow to the shoulder and was slumped on the ground. He had been so certain.

And then for no reason, Merlin had begun to laugh. It was the kind that sent chills down your back not because it was sinister or threatening but because it was wholly inappropriate to the direness of the situation. He sounded mirthful and amused. Like the only one to get the joke. It wasn't the reaction of someone in dire straights.

"Barden!" He cried out in the clearing. "Barden! You have no idea how much you have angered me! You have injured my King! The one I have sworn my service to!"

Barden wondered if the sorcerer had gone around the bend. He had to have done to sound so delighted considering his situation. He did also live in Camelot, a place where magic was banned on pain of death. And they had shot the prince, not Uther. Yet he was laughing. Should he not be angry instead?

"Surrender Emrys!" He called back, trying to banish his uneasy feeling at the carefree chuckles that drifted back to him.

"You tortured me because you wanted a dragon, Barden?" The boy held up his arms displaying the cuts and bruises, raising his chin to further display the injuries they had given to his neck.

Uncertain why the line of questioning was being given he found himself answering. "Yes! I will have a dragon for my own! You have no magic to aid you and my men surround you! Surrender and no harm will come to your prince! I will have my dragon!"

Again that laughter floated to him and the grin on his face made Barden uneasy. It was the look of a face that said it knew more than he did.

When Emrys had endured torture and swore that no dragons would serve him, Barden should have reconsidered.

When the sorcerer had somehow gotten free despite magic manacles it should have occurred to him this was a fools errand.

When he and his men caught up, he should have taken heed by how calm and unafraid the sorcerer Merlin was.

When the prince was shot in the shoulder, he should have taken the dark glare on the sorcerers face as a warning to run while he still could.

When the prince became unconscious it should have occurred to him that anonymity was no longer a concern to their quarry.

When Emrys began to laugh in great whoops, doubling over, Barden should have recognized the danger.

Yet he ignored all those misgivings time and time again. He listened to the sorcerer as he called out across the field he stood surrounded in.

"Of course! If that is your wish! Of course! You wanted dragons and who am I to deny you?! You shall have your hearts desire! You wished for dragons and dragons you shall have!"

Barden stilled as the boy threw his head back and roared to the skies in some primal tongue that made his back shiver. Merlin looked back at the men in front of him coldly, no longer looking pleased. Barden had caught the word 'dracon' in that roar. Suddenly Barden realized the sorcerers game. A dragon was coming. The sorcerer had just called a dragon. They had caught a dragon lord for power but had failed to take this possibility into account. He was frozen to the spot with fear.

Merlin spoke again. "Beware Barden! For my dragon is near and I told him that my enemies are similarly so! He will hunt all of you down and kill you! Especially if you kill me! He will be here soon! Run fast and run far for if you are still here then, you will be at his mercy!"

Even in his peripheral vision he could see the men he had hired turning tail and running.

He heard the rush of wings overheard and ran away from the fearsome roar he heard. He felt heat blossom behind him and the cries of the dying in a rush of fire. He kept running until he could no longer hear the shrieks and the outraged roars of the beast he had sought a way to harness control of. He had reached too far and been too greedy.

It had been a mistake.

A grave miscalculation.

One he would never forget or attempt to repeat.

Xxxxx

Just a small one shot. I wrote this some eight months ago and never bothered to publish it. I kept thinking I would find a way to expand it into this long story. But I think I like the easygoings of one shots.

I find I really like writing them in comparison to multichapter stories. I have ADHD of the inattentive type. I have several symptoms of this but one I find is that I leave things incomplete. I bounce around. It means I FUCKING ROCK at starting out stories but my focus putters off somewhere around the middle. I struggle to write middle to end. I think all of you have noticed the half finished stories I've got sitting on my site.

My new policy of writing and not publishing until I've finished the story is going well though. I've written several chapters for Ooob and same damn song. I hope to do this with many of them. It takes the pressure off and it's not so damn distracting for me. I need to focus less on getting reviews and stuff. More on the writing and the quality. How the story will continue etc. But one shots the whole point is to write a single chapter story and publish it. It's a very nice thing to do. Changes the pace.

-HWKFT


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